To the disappointment of hundreds of thousands of French rally fans, Sebastien Loeb will not restart the Rally of France for day two after his earlier engine issue.
The Citroen team has inspected the data and the engine in the No. 1 DS3 WRC, but feels it would be too much of a risk to send the seven-time world champion back out to the stages. The car will be taken to the Citroen Sport factory in Paris immediately where the engine will be inspected to find out the cause of the problem.
Loeb will start the next round of the World Rally Championship, the Catalunya Rally (Oct. 20-23) with a fresh engine.
Team manager Sven Smeets said: "We could not risk running this engine here and then having the problem come back in Spain. It's very disappointing for Sebastien, the team and all of his fans."